The August 2026 issue of Booklist has 5 Horror reviews by me-- 1 starred review and 4 glowing reviews. There are many happy readers who will love these titles and thank you for introducing you to them. As usual, I am posting my draft review with bonus appeal, my three words, and extra readalikes.
Let's get started.
First up, an unequivocal star for the new Tananarive Due
STAR
A Black girl in 1926 Florida, Mazelle went into the woods to make a wish for a best friend to do shows with. On her walk home, she finds a foul smelling, little dog in her path. From that moment forward, Mazy and Scout start to make it big in the early, racist days of Hollywood. However, just as readers are hooked, Due plunges them into the novel’s present day timeline featuring Mazelle’s grandson, Johnny, a well known if frustrated black filmmaker, the heir to Mazelle's 1950s era, Black-only ski resort, Bear Creek Lodge (aka Mazywood). When Johnny last visited as a child he encountered an unnatural creature, but nothing could have prepared him or his family for this visit, in the middle of a snow storm, as they come face-to-face with the very real consequences of Mazelle’s wish (or is it a curse?). Featuring alternating time frames, immersive worldbuilding, brilliant character development, and perfect pacing, this is a creature feature with brains and bite that will chill readers to the bone, and when it fades to black, they will give it a standing ovation. For all fans of Horror in general and titles like Coldheart Canyon by Barker and The Only Good Indians by Jones specifically.
Three Words That Describe This Book: brains and bite, racism, old hollywood
Further Appel: So many more words....Perfectly paced, great world building, generation trauma, Old Hollywood (with real stuff), racism, awesome old fashioned monster horror with modern sensibilities, brains and bite, perfectly paced. dual time frames, perfect use of foreshadowing, natural storytelling, multi-pov.
This is a good old fashioned supernatural horror novel. It is long, there are two time frames, the world building and characters are spectacular. Readers will be glued to their seats.
Mazelle (Mazy) Washington is one of the first negro stars in Hollywood. As a kid actor in a Little Rascals type production. She is from a show business family-- live shows around the South-- and as a kid, in Gracetown, FL, goes into the woods to make a wish at the wishing pool. She wants a friend and success. What she gets is Scout the Wonderdog. Scout leaves her at one point and her career flags after. Also she is too early to be taken seriously. But she does find a way to make films-- as a dumb maid in a series of Lazy Mazy films-- She builds a Negro Only ski resort in the CA mountains-- Bear Creek Lodge aka Mazywood. WISH OR A CURSE
The other timeline is Johnny, her grandson who is in the present day and is a film maker at a crossroads in his own career. He is known for his horror movies, but he is trying to get a more serious film made. He does well for himself. He never had a relationship with his grandmother because of a bad experience when he visited her as a child. Now, he brings his 2 teenaged sisters and wife to Bear Creek Lodge (he is the last living family member), but the creature he remembers encountering there-- the thing he thought he imagined-- has been alone for years, has grown, and is hunting his family.
This novel is a perfect horror novel and also a great look at racism in America but specifically Hollywood and how it affects even well off families. It is about generational trauma as well. And it is an edge of your seat exciting supernatural creature feature!!!
What makes it all work-- giving the reader time to understand and think about the serious parts, but also get excited about the monsters and danger-- is that Due does not switch time lines quickly. Rather readers spend large chunks of the story in Mazelle's story. Her world is built, we get to go on the set of Gone with the Wind, spend time on sets, at Hollywood parties, with Sammy Davis Jr at the lodge, etc.... You are fully vested and living in Mazelle's world and then something big happens and we are left on the cliff, dangling, sent to Johnny's story told by him and his wife and both girls. It is all third person omniscient so it flows well. We get invested into their family and its drama and details. Again fully vested and living in it. And then they chose to go to Bear Creek Lodge, in a snow storm, with no cell service.....
Again, it switches back to Mazelle's POV and time line just as the danger is cresting. Then we get vested again. And it repeats but again, only a few times.
This long time in each time frame not only helps the characters world Building, and pacing, but it also does the work of planting seeds of info, foreshadowing, leaving trails in the snow (word choice on purpose) to help inform the other time line.
I don't want to give anything away because there are so many discoveries and revelations and surprises here-- like a great movie. Some of these discoveries are of the horror type but others are the family story parts. Just know that when the story fades to black, readers will want to give the book a standing ovation worthy of an award winning film.
Further Readalikes: I really do think if you like horror you will love this. All horror. It is a nice big book that has great characters and great horror tropes. It has historical, creature feature, survival, and film industry frames. I cut this line: from my review--- Suggest widely to fans of modern classics by Robert McCammon or Peter Straub-- Boy’s Life or Ghost Story are my first choices
Also a great NF readalike is Mallory O'Meara's Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman. A perfect book to pair here. About the awful sexism of Hollywood and one woman who was ahead of her time and didn't get the respect or money she deserved because of it.
Next up a hotly anticipated anthology
Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné HorrorEdited by Cynthia Pelayo
Oct. 2026. 336p. Atria/Primero Sueno, paper, $18 (9781668091944).
First published August 2026 (Booklist).
Critically acclaimed author Pelyao presents a culturally centered, haunting anthology featuring a who’s who of today’s Latiné authors with simultaneous publication in English and Spanish. The 17 stories are as different as the authors themselves. For example, Agustina Bazterrica presents a chilling, psychological, and heartbreaking story of a family’s pain; while Ann Dávila Cardinal’s diaspora story/satire will make readers laugh and gasp; and Lilliam Rivera’s standout, a discomfiting, visceral tale of body horror, anger, and retribution across generations and countries that will remind readers of Stephen Graham Jones. The tales here might stem from an inherited legacy of the horrors of colonialism, narco-violence, immigration, dictatorships, and gender violence, but the universal fear they describe reverberates loudly, screams into readers’ ears, ringing with their unsettling truth, lingering and forcing readers to reckon with what they have just experienced, long after the final page is turned. For all horror readers, this anthology will be especially sought after by the fans of the included authors and those who enjoyed the Never Whistle at Night anthologies.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Haunting, Full Range of Scares, Thought-Provoking
Further Appeal: No matter your background as a reader, you will find something that resonates with you here. It is both a specific volume and a universal one. These are inherited stories in some ways but universal as well.
But all haunting. The introduction (by Brenda Lozano, translated by Heather Cleary) talks about what distinguishes a ghost from one culture to the next, how they are the same and different. It is an excellent essay on its own. She writes about how Latin American stories-- even when written in English are linked to political history of Spanish. She writes about Latin American Ghosts being connected to colonialism, narco violence, femicide, precession, and dictatorships. But also the specific folklore of the people depending on where they are from.
The haunting is what I felt reading the stories. They are so different and yet, they all reverberate with a similar energy. The voices presented in each tale linger. The stories unsettle readers-- each in their own way. And you cannot help but think about each after you finish them. The fear is still there whether you want it to be or not, whether you have a personal connection to Latin America or not. And that is the sign of a solid horror anthology.
Published simultaneously in English and Spanish which is cool on its own but when you realized that I read the English version and some stories are noted who translated them into English and when Spanish readers get it, the ones I read in English will have translated by attributions. This is exactly what this anthology is trying to do -- make the way the past, the author's ties to their various Latin traditions, resonate in the present. How the stories they were told, the horrors they lived through, colonization, folklore, diaspora, immigration, family, legacy, violence, revenge, ghosts-- all of it made these authors who they are and that connection to the Spanish, whether they speak it or not, it is there.
Because of the range of scares and writing styles, not every reader will read the entire thing cover to cover at once. But what I think will happen-- readers will come to read a story by an author they love-- and there are many here that have legions of fans (especially some YA authors). They will read that story and then try another. Maybe by another author they have heard of. And then maybe come back to it to try another.
Stories I want to call out:
The first story by Agustina Bazterrica-- Blue Flowers is a great representation of the entire book. Setting the haunting stage. It is psychological, it is chilling, and it will linger with readers. It is also about a family which many of these stories are. Almost all are centered around family relationships.
Ann Davila Cardinal-- Her First Cruise Ship-- is a diaspora story but it is also a shocking satire about the vacation industry in and around PR. I loved it. You will laugh and gasp, but also Cardinal will not allow you to leave it behind without thinking about why you laughed and why you gasped. If you have ever been on a Caribbean island vacation, you will feel discomfort at this one.
Ananda Lima is an author of Brazilian descent that I love. She writes stories that are so original and compelling. This one Specter-- it is a psychological story of the anxiety and fear around being an immigrant, in this case, a grad student. You can feel everything that is happening here-- the real fear and the supernatural.
But my favorite might be Lilliam Rivera's Whispers from the Root. Rivera is a YA author who I was unfamiliar with before this anthology. She grabbed me from the first line and did not let go. This is an angry story of body horror and revenge and WOW! I have not read anything like it. The visuals she creates, the historical harm from one man on three families, the prophesy coming true, the three people knowing they had to make a trek to exact revenge, All of it. the pain, the horror, the heartbreak. The revenge across generations. The cheering for the villain to get his. LOVED IT. It reminded me of Stephen Graham Jones.
Further Readalikes: This anthology is like Never Whistle at Night anthos (mentioned above) or Sinew and Silk (Kulski) this is a cultural based anthology that is able to showcase what unites these Latiné authors but also showcase what makes them different. These stories are all haunting. Some chilling, others visceral. Some more myth or folklore others more psychological. Some straight up terror others sardonic.
The awesome TOC is great. I especially hope it draws more readers to the amazing works by these authors-- especially Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Amanda Lima and A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enríquez.
Next a fun, tongue in cheek, thought provoking pink horror full of rage and empowerment.
This B Just Won’t DieBy Tanya Pell
Oct. 2026. 352p. Gallery, $29 (9781668087398). REVIEW. First published August 2026 (Booklist).
Barb spent years as a scream queen, playing Debbie in six Mirror Man films, but now it’s 20 years later, she’s over 40, signing memorabilia for money, anxious about aging, and angry that she has never been seen as anything but the final girl. However, when people near Barb start getting murdered, the killer leaving clues from the movie franchise, Barb must fight her way through a real-life slasher film, grow into the role of final girl, or die trying. Pell’s (Her Wicked Roots) second novel is both a love letter to and biting satire of the final girl trope, filled with all the parts fans will demand but including a “pink horror” lens, the emerging subgenre of woman centered stories that are deadly terrifying, fun reads that tackle the sexism of the genre and the world at large head on without missing a horror beat. For fans of meta horror like Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix or the scary, angry, feminist horror of authors like Rachel Harrison and C.J. Leede.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Final Girl Trope, Pink Horror, Conversational Tone
Further Appeal: This is a great example of the meta type of final girl story where a final girl scream queen becomes a real life final girl. It has all the parts fans of this trope want, inside info about final girl movies, nods to the "rules" within the genre, mystery as to who the killer is, etc... Readers love that they know what beats of the story are coming and Barb here, she knows too and still even s she tries to avoid the known traps, still gets caught up in them.
This one doubled down on Barb (Barbie) who played Debbie in 6 movies as part of the Mirror Man film franchise. She is now aging and living off the fame of being Debbie, the well known and loved final girl. She wishes she had more of an acting career and is definitely not dealing well with her own aging, but the chance to do a docuseries about her franchise for it's 20th Anniversary and the chance to be taken more seriously draws her in to the world of the franchise again.
Many people die here FYI. And the resolution as to who is behind it all was satisfying and original. The details are put in here very well to make the entire story worth the read and the payoff.
Pink Horror-- This is the term being given to this new but very overdue type of horror that is written by women who are angry, women who write horror that is violent and nuanced and terrifying but also satisfying for anyone to read. These are not cozy stories. they are deadly, terrifying, and immersive in the fear they create but they also plumb serious issues of being a woman in a world that thinks you are weak or lesser, a society that judges you by how pretty you are, how little space you take up, how you can't be too much or men won't enjoy looking at you and isn't that the whole point if you existing. These authors all scream NO while telling stories with real terrifying teeth and empowerment. It is a change from the past, and I for one am here for it.
We women had to read the dude versions of these stories forever. If we could read those, men can read these. And they will because they are good.
This obviously is filled with satire as well. It is both a love letter too and a skewering of the final girls movie, the conscious creation of the scream queen, and the desire by the male gaze to keep her in that role forever. This is hammered home in the con scenes.
It is also written in a conversational tone which will draw readers into Barbie's pov very easily. Coupled with short chapters, readers will breeze through this novel.
Further Readalikes: Other women (besides above) writing terrifying horror that addresses the horror of being a woman who I would recommend are Gwendolyn Kiste, Lindy Ryan, Caitlin Starling, Tiffany Jackson (YA but awesome), Silvia Moreno Garcia, and Carmen Maria Machado
Next, a second novel by an author hot off his Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel.
NightjarsBy Michael Wehunt
Sept. 2026. 352p. St. Martin’s, $30 (9781250333728). REVIEW. First published August 2026 (Booklist).
Following his award-winning debut, The October Film Haunt, Wehunt plunges readers deep into the mountains of Northern Georgia for an atmospheric, blood soaked, horror-crime hybrid. Luke and his ex-wife Kristin still care for each other; however, Luke’s addiction made their union no longer possible. When a date disappears on Luke, leaving behind a photo of him as a child, with a dead body and masked man in his bedroom, he is shaken, but then it gets worse, as the photos keep coming, more recent now, depicting a bloody Luke posing with murder victims. Simultaneously, exsanguinated bodies are also piling up in the area. Luke’s history of missing memories make him no longer able to trust himself. Told by Luke and Kristin as they fight to save what is left of Luke and protect their daughter from a similar fate, readers are led on a twisty, heart-wrenching, and discomfiting journey, one with plenty of surprises nesting in the woods where the nightjars live. For fans of Coffin Moon by Rosson and Devils Kill Devils by Compton.
Three Words That Describe This Book: family secrets, extreme tension, horror-crime hybrid
Further Appeal: more words... psychological, multiple points of view (Luke and Kristin), book within a book, grief, forgotten memories, Southern Gothic, photography, atmospheric at first, visceral as we go on, trauma.
So the marketing includes mention of Dracula, which well, I don't love because I think it is a spoiler. However, since they did do that, yes there are vampires here. And there are missing and or dead women drained of all their blood.
Back to the story-- Luke is a divorced guy who owns a bookstore. He has a very good relationship with his ex-wife Kristin-- that set up matters a lot. They share a kid who they both love with all their hearts. And they both still are for each other deeply, but Luke's addictions and his inability to resolved past trauma in regards to his father made him a bad husband.
Luke goes on a date and the woman leaves him a picture of himself as a child, a dead body in his bedroom and a masked man-- he is distraught. What is this? I know I have missing memories, etc... But then the photos keep coming and they are more recent. He is posing with murder victims, covered in blood. He wakes up in his bookstore, covered in blood with no memories of what happened. Notes about his dead father are being left for him. It is as if someone is leaving him clues.
There are also real people missing and or found dead and drained of their blood. All not far from his North Georgia home near the Appalachian mountains.
Luke does not trust himself.
The POV switches to Kristin after a time as she gets involved trying to help Luke, keep their daughter safe, and figure out the truth behind everything.
It becomes a horror-crime hybrid as the terrifying truth is revealed and then Kristin must fight to save her daughter and what is left of her ex husband.
There is also the use of a book within a book, self published because no one would believe it, about a clan of serial killers in the woods titled "On the Appalachian Nightjar." It is the personal story of a man who son was killed and his life's work to find the answer.
Speaking of "nightjar," the word is used in a variety of ways here. The title of the book within a book, which is a great way to give the reader (and Luke) some background. A nightjar is a bird from that area. It is an odd bird-- large eyes, nocturnal, described as creepy and silent. They hide in plan sight. But it is also described in th prologue as a container for darkness where the lid can be screwed on and it is put on a shelf. So it is also a metaphor for Luke's forgotten, violent memories. I do appreciate that it is plural in the title NIGHTJARS. Because there are a lot of them.
The use of photography as a way to fill in the gaps of missing memories was a nice literary device, however, if you are going to make photography a huge part of the story and the mystery, I really think the photos should be included. If it was like 1 or 2 fine, but Luke being give the photos of places he had clearly been, things he had done, covered in blood int he photo and waking up covered in blood-- all with no memories of the incidents-- there were many of these. I stopped counting. The story needs those on the page.
Further Readalikes: The two above are a good place to start. The Scott Snyder graphic novel series American Vampire and
Fiend by Alma Katsu will both work for readers as well.
Finally a solid horror novel by a name you mist definitely should know.
Worry Box
By Chris Panatier
When a house in the best neighborhood comes up for sale, the Martin family– parents Alison and Nathan, biological daughter Dru, and foster daughter Lailah– move in hopeful for the future, even if, as the girls insist, it is haunted by a helpful ghost. However, as readers know from the disturbing prologue, this is a home that has borne witness to many horrors, horrors that have caused traumatic scars in the structure itself. Adding to the unease, Lailah is working very hard to control her disturbing intrusive thoughts by getting them out of her head and into her worry box. But when bad things start happening, things that were hidden in the worry box, it might mark the end of this family before they had the chance to really begin. Fast paced, with a constantly shifting point of view, and a steadily escalating dread that will make readers squirm, this is a solid haunted house tale which knowingly plays with the trope itself much like in The Haunting of Hill House by Jackson or The September House by Orlando.
Three Words That Describe This Book: steadily escalating unease, foster kids, haunted house titled sideways
Further Appeal: So much tension. It grows slowly at first, the haunting twist is revealed before page 100 but even then, that grows as well, in tandem with the story line of the family. We start unease and it build, escalates-- goes from unsettling to unbalanced to ready to burst.
This is also a story of the different ways trauma is internalized and dealt with. And that part was done cleverly. I cannot say more but know it is not just the family members who hold trauma.
The story follows the Martin family as they move into a new home in the primer neighborhood of the Indianapolis suburbs. Allison is the mother, Nathan the father (a former foster kid), Dru their precious, punk rock loving daughter, and Lailah (12)-- older than Dru and their foster kid who they are getting ready to adopt. All four of them have the POV as does "the ghost"
Lailah has intrusive thoughts which are very intense and violent, but she controls them by writing them down and storing them in her "worry box."
The house holds its own trauma. Readers catch a glimpse of it in the terrifying prologue, but they don't know the half of it until later in the book. But that opening scene sets the terrifying tone. Yes the story backs up to the Martins moving in the house and noticing a smell in one room and that strange things are happening (on their own) but none of it is nefarious-- at first. And yet, readers cannot shake that terrifying first scene. It is there to remind you that things are not as great as they seem, without hitting you over the head with it.
And it gets worse and worse for the family, the house, and the ghost. I enjoyed the sidewise tilt of the haunted house trope-- it worked very well for this story. How and why the haunting becomes more intense, how the different daily members react, the honest discussion of fostering kids, the way trauma is internalized and the different ways that trauma is dealt with. There are good ways and bad ways to do it. But the discussion is there if readers want to engage with it.
And that's the other thing, this is an enjoyable haunted house story even for readers who do not want to engage with the more thought-provoking aspects. That is a good thing. Especially with library readers-- we want books that can appeal to different readers for different reasons. These are the titles that we love to be able to hand out to a wide range of patrons. Worry Box is good for this.
An intense and satisfying haunted house story that will burrow deep into readers and allow them to feel the tension with their entire body. You will feel the build up and be ready when it bursts open.
Further Readalikes: This is a haunted house story in the vein of The Haunting of Hill House by Jackson or The House Next Door by Siddons. If you have read these, this is a bit of a spoiler, but also that part of the story is revealed before you are a third of the way through and it is not the half of it in terms of spoiling what happens.
More modern version of a sentient haunted house overlapping with family issues include: The Grip of It Jemc, How to Sell a Haunted House by Hendrix and The September House by Orlando (in review).
